


Baby, You Can Fly My Starship

by Iambic



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sulu proves his mettle to all of Starfleet Academy, and Jim has ambitions. And also a libido.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, You Can Fly My Starship

The summer before Sulu's last year at Starfleet Academy, he and two classmates sign out three auxiliary ships for "practice" and draw a large crowd racing across the bay and out to sea and back. Sulu wins by a fairly large margin each time around, though this doesn't do anything to ease the disciplinary hearing that all three are subjected to afterward.

Being prohibited from recreational use of Starfleet vessels does nothing for their restlessness. One of the other two racers, Kati-from-two-systems-away, suggests that they find someplace to rent aircraft and race those instead. The way she eyes Sulu probably suggests that she's motivated by a competitive streak more than a desire to help her fellows out, but nonetheless, the three of them execute their plan a week and two days after their first race.

They don't tell anyone about their intentions, but a few swoops over the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge seem to tip the rest of Starfleet's finest off to the identity of the stunt fliers overhead. When Sulu and Kati and Aiden step off the bus and walk back into the confines of the school, there's a sizable crowd waiting to surround and congratulate them and cheer them on.

"Who won this time?" someone shouts, and Sulu doesn't say anything, but Kati points at him and Aiden shakes his head. "Who's that?" someone else asks.

"That's Hikaru Sulu, dumbass," a third person says - not as loudly, but still perfectly audible. "You sit behind him in advanced botany."

And thusly does Sulu's reputation get its start.

\--

Jim Kirk isn't a particularly delusional individual. The fact that he refuses to accept certain facets of his reality is not born of skewed understandings of the world around him, but a determination to change them by the strength of his will alone. When Jim Kirk believes in a thing, it generally will happen, or do its damndest to try.

Jim Kirk doesn't just believe he'll make captain of a starship someday. He knows it. He knows, now, that it's what he was born to do.

He informs Leonard McCoy very early into their friendship that when he is captain of his ship, McCoy will be his medical officer, no doubts at all. McCoy was unconvinced, but two years into their friendship, he's beginning to see how this might just happen. Jim believes with all the strength of desperation, because after a life of hiding from his father's shadow – and whatever else that he doesn't talk about – someone is telling him that he can do better. So he will do better.

Jim doesn't believe in no-win situations, so he always wins. Jim expects that the people he works with will do the best they can, and somehow they do. Jim knows that McCoy is the best goddamn doctor on the planet, and somehow that's becoming true as well, if Starfleet know what they're talking about.

"I need to find rest of my future crew," Jim says very seriously, after only one shot, so McCoy knows this will be a continuing quest. He sighs, and downs the rest of his mint julep in preparation. "You were a lucky find, but I'm not going to suddenly become best friends with the rest of the people I'll need."

He probably could, is the funny thing. Everyone loves Jim Kirk, even if they claim otherwise.

Next afternoon, wandering the grounds, McCoy happens to look up at the sound of engines. The three stunt fliers are at it again, whizzing around the Academy airspace and back out to sea. A few cheers and whoops break out from the cadets who happen to be in the vicinity, and Jim actually stops eye-fucking that redheaded Orion girl to look up as the planes loop around and pass over the courtyard a second time. One is clearly ahead.

"Bones," says Jim, pointing toward it. "Who's the guy who always wins?"

The Orion girl is the one who responds. "Hikaru Sulu. He's going into his last year at the Academy. He's their ace flier." She smiles, slow and sultry. McCoy rolls his eyes. "He's _gorgeous_, too."

"Prettier than me?" Kirk asks, mock-horrified.

"Maybe," says the girl, and the conversation degrades from there.

\--

"Hikaru Sulu, right?"

Sulu turns around to face the cadet who addressed him. He is confronted with a killer grin and set of bright baby blues, a hand extended toward him. "I'm Jim Kirk, by the way," the cadet continues in a drawl just oozing charm. "Word is you're Starfleet's flying prodigy."

"That's what they _say_," Sulu mutters, under his breath, and shakes Kirk's hand anyway. "Please don't tell me you're about to ask for an autograph."

This would be funnier if it had not already happened earlier that day. But Kirk, who doesn't know that, laughs loud and surprised and delighted. "You've seen right through me!" Then he claps a hand on Sulu's shoulder and doesn't let it fall. "No, actually, I want you to pilot my ship when I make Captain."

"Uh…huh." Sulu blinks once and shifts his shoulders. Kirk remains attached to the left one. "When you make Captain. _If_ you make Captain."

"I'm going to make Captain," says Kirk, very earnestly. He's not even grinning anymore. "And when I do, I want to best people working with me. And you're the best pilot I know."

"You _don't_ know me," says Sulu.

"I've seen you fly. I'm talking to you now. So how about it?" The grin is back, bright and blinding, and then he does release Sulu's shoulder and rocks back on his heels. "At least think about it, will you?"

Sulu could brush him off, say something about how he can't really control where he's assigned. He could point out that Kirk is only another cadet with big dreams, and there are a lot of people who want to make Captain. But he doesn't. Maybe it's the big smile, or the complete confidence that Sulu will listen to him. Maybe it's that Sulu recognises someone like himself, someone who dives into a challenge headfirst and laughing. Maybe Sulu's just a sucker for a pretty face.

"Yeah. I'll think about it," he says, and actually smiles back.

\--

Sulu caves after a week, which is honestly longer than Jim expected and gives him a few more awesome points. He turns up outside, in the courtyard, looking distinctly out of place. There aren't any planes in the sky that day, but Jim does manage to convince Hikaru Sulu to spend the afternoon in his company, talking about such things as history with flying and what they're both doing at the Academy during the summer.

(And damn it, Gaila was right about Sulu being good-looking.)

Somehow they end up picking up dinner together, and then Jim asks Sulu to join him and Bones as they hit the bars that night, and Sulu surprises everyone concerned by actually agreeing. An hour into the night, karaoke happens, and the combined efforts of Jim and Sulu are enough to get Bones up on the stage, where his smooth voice, unhampered by drunkenness, draws a raucous applause. Sulu laughs open-mouthed and plainly surprised. He's less pleased when Jim and Bones force him on stage, but as it turns out he doesn't have a bad voice either.

"You don't want Jim going up there," Bones says, voice dry as his glass is empty. "It'll hurt us more than it hurts him."

"Good to know," says Sulu, and catches Kirk's eye for a moment with a mile-wide grin.

"I won't wait up for you," Bones says later, when they're making leaving motions. Then he rolls his eyes and pays his tab and leaves first. Sulu watches him go; he looks amused, like he's seen this display before. Jim hopes that means he knows what's ahead.

(Sulu really is a ridiculously attractive man.)

Jim says, nonchalant, "You haven't given me an answer yet."

To which Sulu gives him an expression that Jim cannot understand, something between amusement and confusion and anticipation and something else altogether. Jim does have a feeling that his chances of getting laid tonight are pretty good, though. "I'm going to live to regret this, if I'm lucky," Sulu says. "But sure, what the hell."

Jim grins, wider than before, but all he says is, "Awesome."

He's reading the signs right, and not too much time passes before they make it through the door to Sulu's empty dorm ("Roommate's home for the summer.") and stop being subtle. Jim initiates contact, hand to thigh and mouth to mouth, but Sulu takes control, pulls him deliberately off-balance, collapsing the distance between them. Shirts off, pants down, and Sulu's got him pinned to the bed. They take a moment to catch their breath.

"I don't have a ship yet," Jim says, voice sort of husky in arousal, "but you can still take a test drive."

"Sounds good to me."

Sulu mirrors his reckless grin, and kills the distance again. It's lips to neck and teeth to skin, tangled legs and bursts of sensation when erections collide. Jim drags hands down Sulu's back, one back around and down, but Sulu knocks it away and works his way down himself, teeth and tongue and fingertips. Jim's sometimes shuddering from it, sometimes wincing when Sulu bites hard, hissing encouragement. Sulu chuckles low and doesn't slow down.

\--

Autumn term begins, with more intense scheduling, and the impromptu races stop. The stories continue to circle Starfleet Academy, growing further from the truth with each cycle. Sometimes people talk about near wins, so close that Kati-from-the-next-system-over could taste it, while others expound upon the distance between Sulu's plane and Aiden's, stretching it further with every retelling. Storms crop up, unknown aircraft pass through – there are even a few daring rescues. One aspect remains true: in every story, Sulu wins the race.

Jim Kirk continues to be the bane of Leonard McCoy and every instructor's existences, while managing to learn everything he needs to know despite his reluctance to spend all his time studying. The stories people tell about him remain the same stories of acting out and getting laid, and he doesn't even come close to Sulu's spotless record of successes.

But he's got a pilot lined up for the ship he knows he's gonna captain one day. And in the mean time, Sulu does other things almost as well as he flies.


End file.
